


“Time to Kill”

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (I'm so sorry whales), Based on/following an adapted version of a song, Gen, Humanstuck, Hurt/Comfort, I feel like maybe I should also tag, M/M, Revenge, Sea Monsters, Violence Towards Whales, but a LOT of elements of, does that make this a song-fic?, some elements of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27929974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: “We are two marinersOur ships’ sole survivorsIn this belly of a whale.Its ribs are ceiling beamsIts guts are carpetingI guess we have some time to kill.”— “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” The Decemberists
Relationships: Gamzee Makara/Karkat Vantas, Orphaner Dualscar & Gamzee Makara, The Dolorosa/Orphaner Dualscar, mentions of unhealthy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	“Time to Kill”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there~~~ I hope you enjoy this, if you read it!!! I'd originally imagined this being for Halloween, but...... I'm really late ahahaha. I'm so sorry, all fans of Dualscar, too. I thought maybe I'd put Goatdad in the Sketchy Whaler role, but then I liked how this fit together??? (Also, "Orphaner" felt p convenient~) Like I say in the tags, this is based off "The Mariner's Revenge Song" by the Decemberists, with some artistic liberties taken. I'm sorry for any and all mistakes I might've made!!!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading -- I hope you're staying safe and having a fantastic day~

The infamous Orphaner Dualscar did _not_ like how this vacant-smiling sailor with tangled sea-sticky curls and words of prophesy tattooed and twisting up his neck was looking at him. 

There were plenty of things not to like about his current situation, granted — first off being that Dualscar’s whaling ship, his gory cutthroat pirate’s vessel, slick with lamp-oil whale fat and rattling with coin, had just been chewed apart by a sea monster. Yeah, that was pretty bad. The crew’d become bloody stains mashed across the beast’s teeth; the swallowed treasure had all ended up here, among the sticky muck where Dualscar found himself. Dualscar, and this one other man left alive, that is. Some sailor with a prophetic tattoo. Dualscar was sure he’d never hired someone like this guy to work on his ship. He had an eerie knowingness about him — or was it an eerie emptiness? — and his gaze felt secret-swimming and dark as the ocean this monster had risen from to swallow them. 

The sailor had been sitting over Dualscar when he woke up, sputtering on sea slime, cursing his luck and all the wild deep. His worn, cracked hands were folded patiently around one of his knees, at the time. He’d sat watching Dualscar struggle with that same uncanny smile, all the way until this very moment. 

The monster’s guts shifted, warm and horrible all around, smelling like a thousand deaths and sloshing up to Dualscar’s ankles. It’s a wonder he hadn’t drowned in this stomach-lake, actually — maybe the man with the prophetic tattoo had propped his head high enough to keep him breathing, when he needed to. But why would he do a thing like that? He barely moved as Dualscar inspected this unnatural space — he must’ve been the one to light that small lamp, though, hung from the creature’s ribs above them. Ribs that had become a new, creaking sky. The lamp swayed, casting crooked shadows across the sailor’s face. 

When he got out of here, Dualscar knew he could scrape together a new ship, a new crew. He’d never had any trouble kicking the world’s metaphorical knees, before, and rewriting it to his will. This had been a decent enough crew, but in a handful of years — maybe less — Dualscar knew he wouldn’t remember any of their names. This had happened before. Well. Alright. Not _this_ , per se, with being swallowed by a sea monster and trying to tell a smiling sailor with a prophetic tattoo to fuck off, but other, equivalently stupid things, obviously. 

Dualscar had tried unsuccessfully dragging himself forward and back up the sea monster’s throat maybe a dozen times before the sailor with the prophetic tattoo decided to speak. Every time he attempted escape, he was gulped stickily, maddeningly back down again. He bruised ribs, and cracked fingernails. He lost his sword somewhere against the sea monster’s tongue, when he’d tried using it like a climbing-hold, stabbing it in every so often to pull himself up. No hope. No hope at all, but Dualscar would have spun around on his heeled pirate captain boot and tried again if the sailor with the prophetic tattoo’d stayed silent. 

But, “Hey, motherfucker,” the sailor with the prophetic tattoo said, instead, and Dualscar jumped a little at his voice. Embarrassing, but true. The stranger’s voice was low and creaky, like rusty gears winding up deep inside some sort of mechanized toy. Now that Dualscar studied his face a little closer, he thought he saw smudges by the man’s eyes, sort of like clown paint. Like oily harlequin tears. No, not Harlequin — the other guy, in a Harlequinade. The sad one. Pierrot. “You may not have any idea who the actual fuck I am, but I’m at chill with that wicked truth. You never knew _me_ , honest to the messiahs. Hah. Just the love of my motherfucking life, you hear that?”

“What are you going on about?!” Dualscar barked. “We — I have to escape this place. Do you have anything we could use to climb the monster’s tongue?” 

“Fuck no, bro,” the sailor with the prophetic tattoo said. He sat there, smiling, for a long moment. Looking Dualscar up and down — maybe he was savoring this. After Dualscar had tried... and failed... to make his way out of the creature’s mouth one more time — it was harder without his sword, by the way — he asked, “You remember the name ‘Karkat Vantas?’”

“Of course I don’t,” Dualscar huffed. He spat some more slime... and a tooth? Oh, ew... out of his mouth. “What, is that _your_ name?” 

“Nope,” said the stranger. “Guess again. Like I said, I get that you don’t fucking know me, but I sure as shit know you.” The sailor patted the gooey wet whale-guts ground next to him, like he was inviting Dualscar to come tell stories around a campfire. “I can tell you all about it, if you want. And then... who knows? Haha. Maybe I got some miraculous way outta this whale after all.”

“This isn’t a whale,” Dualscar said. “I know whales. I’m a whaler — this is... this is a monster.” But he took a seat next to the sailor, anyway. He listened. 

The stranger waited for a few long breaths before he began his story. Before he began his rage. He wasn’t a sailor, not really, he said — he was a young priest of the Mirthful Messiahs, yeah, you fucking know it, and a couple years ago he took a guy about his age in off the streets. Karkat Vantas, yeah, that’s him. He was the funniest motherfucker you ever saw, with a heart deeper than any ocean could get; he calmed this young priest down when his fury almost got the better of him, and he had so much to fucking say about every little thing. Not at first, though. At first Karkat had been a stick-thin, flinching thing, and he always thought Gamzee was gonna beat the shit out of him. Right, the young priest’s name was “Gamzee.” Keep the fuck up, Orphaner Dualscar. 

Gamzee knew what Dualscar’d done, too, don’t think he didn’t. It took a while — it took long nights of holding Karkat while he cried in his sleep, so, so quiet, once the clown church took him in to tidy up the divine circus halls and such. It took Gamzee insisting on feeding him three times a day for months before Karkat smiled at him without his eyes looking so miserably like a bruise. But now, Gamzee knew what Dualscar had done. What landed Karkat on the streets to start with; what took all his tumbling shouty words away, and hid them somewhere secret inside himself. Somewhere he couldn’t be fucking hurt anymore. 

“I never did anything to a ‘Karkat Vantas,’” Dualscar spat. But the last name _was_ familiar, somewhat... “So I guess you’ve cornered the wrong man, for this story. Surely you’d rather help me escape this monster, so you can find the _true_ criminal?”

“Psh. Not Karkat _only_ ,” Gamzee grinned. “His mother. Porrim. Karkat told me all about what shit you up and did to Porrim. The fucking sicknesses you brought to her bed; the debts you went and left her with; the way you drank and drank and drank her dry. You left, just before she did. Before she all went and died from what you gave her, my brother. And do you know what she asked Karkat to do, just before she kicked the wicked motherfucking shit?”

“No,” said Dualscar. He knew Porrim’s name. He knew she’d loved him; he hadn’t realized she was gone. It had been so long ago. 

“She told him to live, as well as he could,” Gamzee laughed. “Wasn’t very fucking well, not with what the city did to him. But when Karkat told me he’d seen your ship pull into the dock just _so fucking close_ to the clown church... I maybe got to thinking. _Find him._ Break his bones into special stardust. And I hadn’t been with your fucking crew for more than a week or so, before here we fucking are.” Gamzee spread his hands wide, and for the first time Dualscar noticed the tiny silver claws he’d been holding tight in his palms. Like crab claws; perfect for scraping somebody’s eyes out, maybe, or for dragging your way up a monster’s throat and back into the light. “That’s what I call _all kinds_ of motherfucking miraculous. Don’t you think, motherfucker?”

“I —”

“You know what?” Gamzee leaned in, now, trailing one of those deathly sharp claws down Dualscar’s cheek. It felt tender, at first, and then the pain came. “I don’t care what the fuck you think. This is a messiahs-blessed miracle, and I’m gonna bring Karkat back your boots to prove I did what needed to get up and done.”

Dualscar fought, but he’d lost his sword, remember. Dualscar fought, but rage was the howling wind over that ocean, and it was the beast that had gulped them down whole. 

***

Gamzee lost one of Dualscar’s heeled boots, before he dragged himself back up on shore. He was blood and sea-slime and murder, by then, but Karkat came running to the docks and held him tight. Rocking him back and forth, as the constables and high clown priests demanded to know where Gamzee had been.

Karkat knew. He saw the boot, and he knew. He asked, “What if _he_ had killed _you_?” into the crook of Gamzee’s neck, where the words of mirthful prophesy were waiting. 

Gamzee’s shoulders shook a little, then, and maybe that was laughter, or maybe he’d swallowed too much seawater. Karkat didn’t know, but he squeezed him tighter either way. 


End file.
